The price rise of tourism services played a significant role in this performance. Prices were affected by the fact that Easter fell in April this year, while the previous year Easter week fell entirely in March. This is therefore a transitory rise. In month-on-month terms, the CPI rose by 1% in April, compared with a 0.7% increase in the same month of 2016.
Energy product prices rose in April by 12% year-on-year, three tenths more than in March. This performance was due to the faster rate of growth of electricity prices (up from 12.5% year-on-year in March to 16.2% in April) and, to a lesser extent, of gas prices (up by over five points to 6.6%), partly offset by lower prices of fuels and lubricants, down by 1.3 points to 11.5%.
Food prices rose by 1.2% in April, two tenths less than in March. Unprocessed food inflation stood at 3.4%, nine tenths below the previous month's figure, as a result of the performance of fresh fruit prices (down by 5.3 points to 5%). Processed food, drink and tobacco prices increased by 0.2% in April, one tenth more than in March. Prices of oils and fats played a significant role in this performance, having fallen by 0.7% in March while rising by 0.5% in April.
Core inflation (which excludes the most volatile elements of CPI, fresh food and energy) rose by three tenths in April to 1.2%, due to the significant acceleration of prices of services and, to a lesser extent, of processed food, partly offset by the slower rate of growth of non-energy industrial goods (NEIG) prices. The price of services grew by one point to 2.1%, driven by rising package holiday prices, which changed from being practically stable in March (0.1%) to rising by 20.9% in April. This performance was due to the Easter calendar effect; in 2017 Easter week fell in April while in 2016 it fell in March. Meanwhile, NEIG prices eased by three tenths to 0.3%, in which prices of clothing and footwear played a significant role, up by 0.8% in March but only by 0.3% in April.
In month-on-month terms, the CPI rose by 1% in April 2017 versus growth of 0.7% recorded in the same month of 2016. Broken down by components, energy product prices grew by 0.5% after the 0.2% increase in the previous year, services prices grew by 0.8% after shrinking by 0.2% in April 2016, NEIG prices grew by 2.5%, three tenths less than in April last year, and food prices eased by 0.1%, versus growth by the same percentage in April 2016.
In the food category, in April 2017 unprocessed food prices posted a month-on-month drop of 0.4% (versus 0.5% in the same month of 2016), while processed food prices rose by 0.1% (versus no change the previous year).
In April, the year-on-year CPI grew in all autonomous regions. The biggest rise compared with March was posted in the Region of Madrid (up by six tenths to 2.5%), while the smallest rises, all by one tenth, were recorded by Extremadura (2%), Cantabria (2.6%), Castile-La Mancha (2.7%), and Galicia (2.8%).
The year-on-year constant tax CPI rate for April stood at 2.6%, the same as the general CPI.
The INE has also published the harmonised CPI (CPIA) for April 2017, with a year-on-year variation of 2.6%, up by half a point on the figure for March. Meanwhile, the rate advanced by Eurostat for the Eurozone was 1.9% in April, four tenths higher than the previous month, giving rise to an inflation differential favourable to Spain over the Eurozone by 0.7 points, one tenth higher than March's figure.
Ministerio de Agricultura y Pesca, Alimentación y Medio Ambiente